If you like the journey of leveling...

If your reaction is negative, you are blowing it out of proportion. There is still going to be plenty of leveling. Look at all the classes and jobs. I think what he was trying to convey is that an offline FF fan could progress through the 90% main story just as they do in offline titles. He is only stating things as of now up until the level cap.

Huge Point not said: He doesn't state if this is the way the main story or progression will be after the level cap raise or expansions.

Keep my bolded statement in mind before all the negative comments come. Also there will not be 100% unique class story because this game doesn't follow the alt formula. FFXI didn't have a 100% unique story per job through the whole leveling process either, so do not try and hold ARR to some devilish standard. ARR will probably end up having more classes/jobs than Xi in the end if it stays around.

Edited, Jun 25th 2013 4:02pm by sandpark

Woah first of all what the **** is wrong with you people rating me down because I posted an article by Yoshi? Second of all, my reaction was in NO WAY negative... I've never played a game where leveling is meant to be done quickly so the "real game starts at level cap" can begin... Not my words Yoshi's.

I'm in love with this game even though it's out of my comfort zone... Don't know where you got a negative reaction out of my post?

Quoting Yoshi “we believe the game up to level 50 is basically your tutorial. The real game begins from level 50. We have the real challenges begin there. ”

This game is NOT about the leveling process, I'm sorry if you didn't read the article.

I didn't say your reaction was negative. I don't know why you quoted me? I asked if your reaction was negative.

You never played Guild Wars 2? Sure it didn't have traditional endgame but leveling is fast there.

I read the article and I believe some of his comments were taken out of context.

NY: Looking at the current generation of gamers, a lot of them don't want to play something for a long time. The main reason being that there's so much to play. There are so many choices. Not only do you have console games, you have handheld games, and so many other things to do. Creating a game in this generation that takes a long time to level up in is pretty much nonsense. It's not what this generation of players wants.

For ARR, the level cap is going to be level 50 to start the game. We don't want players to have to spend a lot of time getting to level 50. The reason behind this is that we believe the game up to level 50 is basically your tutorial. The real game begins from level 50. We have the real challenges begin there. We have a lot of end content that we've already prepared to be ready at the launch of the game.

"One of the reasons that The Old Republic tripped up was because BioWare didn't have endgame content prepared in time. We hope to have a lot of end content ready." One of the reasons that Star Wars maybe tripped up a bit was because [BioWare] didn't have that end content prepared in time. They had to make updates, but players got to the end too quickly and they didn't have that ready. We hope to have a lot of end content ready. We also have the schedule set for even more end content. We can keep updating things. Because we have that long schedule, we know what's coming and we know what we have to have ready. We believe that, yes, even though it's going to be easier to get to that level cap than it was in FFXI, from there we'll have a lot of content ready and we'll be adding a lot more in the near future as well.

USG: When you hit the level cap, you say that the real game begins. Besides just seeing the content, though, what motivation is there for the player to keep going when they can no longer level up? What is it that will motivate players to go beyond level 50? For traditional RPG players, a lot of the motivation for playing an RPG is that constant sense of progression and always getting stronger, always learning new skills.

NY: That's a difficult question. We understand that for a lot of console gamers out there, leveling is a very important thing. But we want them to know that, again, it's not always just about your character level, but being able to experience new things. When you get to level 50, the things you'll be able to do... The story will continue, but to be able to continue the story, you'll need to become more powerful in different ways.

For example, getting better gear. Even though you're level 50, you'll get better gear that will help you handle these challenges. To get that gear, you'll have to go through new quests and new dungeons, and that will in turn help you attack these new challenges.

Again, we understand that some people will get to level 50 and think, "Okay, I'm done." You can't retain all of those guys. But what you can do to retain some of them is to show them that, yeah, you can get to level 50, but there are still new challenges that await you and new things that you can do.

One way to think about it is like this. You go through the game. You get to level 50. You have the final main scenario battle with the enemy from the Empire and then you kill him. But once you kill him, the primal Bahamut is released, and he's flying over the world, raining his fire down. You're level 50, but do you stop there? If players want to stop there, they can stop there, but they have the option to get stronger through your gear and experience more new quests. Level 50 is where the game really starts.

1.He doesn't want leveling up to take a long time. He doesn't explicitly say it's pointless. 2,He says there is story up until level 50 which is mostly soloable. But he says the story can continue. It will become much more harder to advance. 3.When he refers to the game really starts at 50. I think he means that's where the game being more similar to an offline FF starts to become more mmoish and difficult to progress.

Swtor did the same thing. The leveling process was more akin to Kotor. In ARR it more akin to an offline FF 1-50. Only in this game he is promising there will be tons of endgame content.

I like you, I'm sorry if it seemed like I was accusing you of something.